Buenos Aires

02/02/09

We reached Buenos Aires courtesy of a 19 hour coach journey, and whilst that sounds horrific to most, its pretty standard for South America due to the sheer size of the continent. Fortunately we travelled in 1st class, and Argentinean coach companies definitely don't replicate National Express! Entertained by movies on plasma TV's that have only just hit the cinema, hot meals, fully reclining seats, champagne and a Whiskey night cap certainly made the jaunt a little easier (the scary thing was is that it cost £40 each). But despite the comparable luxury to the very expensive and un-reliable Brazilian coaches, there was a negative. In Argentina national guard check points are extremely common and about 5 minutes into the journey we hit one, the bloody police sniffer dog decided to drop his load right in the middle of the bus, it smelt rank…but pretty funny looking back!!!

BA is certainly amongst the coolest cities, its extremely sophisticated for South America and is sooooo heavily influenced by Europe. We are staying in an awesome hostel in an area of BA called San Telmo, which is kind of the historical centre of the city. The architecture of some of the buildings is incredible (very Italian) and there is a small piazza which is home to some of the most amazing antique shops and collections in the world by day, and then becomes the epicentre of Tango by night.

We also took a walk around the port which is also a very fashionable area with lots of more expensive bars and restaurants, it is a bit similar to Barcelona but miles bigger.